


Live Coals in the Sea

by Stone_Princess



Category: Boondock Saints (Movies)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-07-08
Updated: 2003-07-08
Packaged: 2017-10-26 08:18:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/280806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stone_Princess/pseuds/Stone_Princess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if you were the one left living?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Live Coals in the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the lovely Sugarrush for a quick and dirty beta and the excellent hand holding she did in midwifing this little puppy out.

Murph had never touched anyone but Connor. It wasn't so much the threat of sin that kept them away from girls, rather the world they had created for themselves simply didn't have room for anyone else.

Connor had bled to death in Murphy's arms. It should have been different. It should have been both of them. Without Connor, Murphy wasn't a whole person. Lying here, in the dark, his heart beat felt weak, incomplete without Connor's to echo back.

He fumbled for his cigarettes. The match glow reflected the guns on the night stand. The room was so dark and quiet that Murph could almost imagine he was in his own coffin.

He sat up, the floor cold beneath his feet. No, not a coffin. Too much space. Without Connor, everything felt like it had too much space.

Murph had screamed when Connor was shot, but everything after was silence. Connor's heartbeat was so loud as Murph held him. As it slowed it seemed the rest of the world quieted with it. Nothing had seemed to matter much since then.

They'd come back to Ireland planning to wipe it clean of gangsters, as they'd done in Boston. Talking to their old friends it had been easy to find out where the lowlifes played. It was God's work wherever they were. And maybe it was better that Connor and their father had died at the hands of their own countrymen rather than at the hands of some heathen Americans.

He dressed slowly, lit only by the glow of the neon outside. He wasn't in a hurry, Murph only had one more stop to make and then... what? He didn't know, faith would have to carry him through. If he could find it in himself again.

It was only nine days since they'd laid their mother to rest after she'd been hit by a lorry when walking home from the pub.

The night that followed her funeral, Murphy hadn't slept at all. He'd heard Connor's breath soften as he fell asleep, but soon Connor was trembling and sobbing in his dreams. Murph had crawled into Connor's bed and pulled his brother to him. Connor cried out through the whole night, even as Murph held him. It wasn't until the weak, pewter-hued first light fell on his face that Connor had calmed, had relaxed against Murphy, here in this room.

Yet even when Connor was quiet Murphy couldn't sleep. Connor looked so young, slumber wiping care from his face. The face of the boy Murph had grown up with, the face that never seemed to change, even when they became men.

Murph flipped on the light. He glanced around the room. Everything he needed was with him. There was nothing in this room for him now. He patted himself down lightly, making sure his weapons were all secure before he set out into the night. Murphy didn't bother locking the door. He wouldn't be coming back to this room.

Today, or maybe yesterday, he didn't know what time it was, Murphy had watched the bodies of his brother and father placed in the cold ground next to his mother. Her grave was still so fresh that the headstone hadn't yet been erected. Everyone he loved was gone now. Surely God watched over them, but who would Murphy watch over?

The night was eerily silent as he moved quickly and soundlessly through the old stone alleys. They should have only returned to see their mother given back to the earth she came from. They shouldn't have stayed. They shouldn't have come to Dublin seeking revenge on the men destroying their homeland.

Surely it was God's will that his father and brother be buried in their native soil. But what of Murphy? What did God want for him, he wondered as he slipped through the back door, moving silently down the stairs to the card room. He would continue to be God's hammer of justice until he was called home.

The voices were low as Murphy stepped through the door. He'd drawn his guns and started shooting before they even turned to look at him. But there were too many of them. Maybe if Connor was here they would have had a chance together.

Connor had always been the one of strong faith, Murph thought as bullet ripped through his left shoulder. Murphy had only ever really had faith in Connor. Connor was the saint Murphy had always followed. He never saw the bullet that took him, or from whose gun it came. But Murph took it right above the heart, just as Connor had. He felt his heart slow to the last rhythm he'd felt in his brother's chest.

Connor had gone out shooting and Murph would do the same. He raised his right hand, the exertion of pulling the trigger enough to make him forget the pain in his shoulder, in his chest, in his heart.

As he closed his eyes against the pain, Murphy remembered his father standing over his mother's grave quoting William Langland:  
 _But all the wickedness in the world which man may do or think is no more to the mercy of God than a live coal in the sea._

And then everything was black, but it didn't matter, Murphy knew he would follow Connor once more. God would never be cruel enough to separate them for long. He could see now he'd only been left to clean up the details before he too was taken.

He would once again be warm in the radiance of Connor's smile as they floated together in the sea of God's mercy.

~finis~


End file.
